Chapter Seventeen: Arin

Alone after Galim’s Bend, Arin vomits and assesses his injuries, refusing healers so aid reaches survivors. He notes a nisnas burn, remembers luring Al Anqa’a away, and recalls a chilling, seemingly real voice warning him to turn around. He prepares a kit and painfully cleans and stitches himself but blacks out mid-treatment.

He wakes to a medic, Wes, and then Rawain, who clears the room. Rawain announces the Mufsids will be executed at dawn in Antar Square, framing Galim’s Bend as an Urabi message and insisting on a decisive, public response. Arin argues execution wastes critical intelligence that could lead to the Jasad Heir and Urabi networks.

Rawain rebuffs him, prioritizing speed and optics over interrogation. He veils threats in paternal language, presses Arin’s head wound to enforce submission, and orders Arin to stand tall at the execution. Arin yields outwardly but refuses to clean the blood, wearing it as a silent protest.

Alone, Arin touches the scar from Soraya’s blade and lets the reopened wound bleed, burdened by guilt over enabling the Urabi’s capture of the Jasad Queen and the devastation at Galim’s Bend.